Van Gaal

[Dreambeliever]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/01/manchester-united-louis-van-gaal-mehmet-scholl

Manchester United players will find Van Gaal 'difficult' - Mehmet Scholl
• Ex-Bayern assistant says coach has 'problems with big players'
• 'He is a genius … and exactly the right coach for United'

Jamie Jackson
The Guardian, Thursday 1 May 2014 22.30 BST

Manchester United have been warned that Louis van Gaal's potential appointment as manager could put him on collision course with senior players such as Wayne Rooney.

Mehmet Scholl, who won eight Bundesliga titles with Bayern Munich and was their reserve team coach under Van Gaal, believes the Dutchman is a "genius coach" who will guarantee success for United. But he is unsure how long this will last.

Van Gaal is expected to be appointed by the middle of next week – he wants a deal in place by 7 May when he joins his Dutch-based players to begin their World Cup preparation. And Scholl told the Guardian: "He's very strict and severe. So the players just have the chance to follow him or they are out and he takes the next players. He's very good with young players. I think everywhere he was he had some problems with big players and the staff."

Van Gaal, who is the Holland coach until after the summer's World Cup, has previously managed Ajax, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern during his club career. Though he has won championships with all of these teams, the 62-year-old's longest tenure was his six years at Ajax before spending three at Barca, four with AZ and two at Bayern.

Asked how Van Gaal has achieved this success if he can fall out with senior players and staff, Scholl said: "There are 26, 27 players and he is looking for the 14 to follow him – 14, 15, 16 to follow. His thing is not the motivation [man-management]. He's good in motivation but this is not his main character thing.

"His thing is really working on the pitch – that's brilliant. And that's how the players learn. You know by yourself that if you learn from somebody you are curious, you want to learn more.

" Some of the players, I can tell you, like Rooney, I don't think he has to learn anything more. So that will be difficult for him if the coach says: 'You have to do it in a completely different way. Whatever you did until now, change it.'"

While Rooney is United's highest-paid player, Van Gaal enjoys a close relationship with Robin van Persie, the club's next best-rewarded footballer, naming his countryman as Holland captain, and the pair were regularly seen together at matches during Van Persie's recent recuperation from a knee injury. "I think the education is the thing," said the former midfielder Scholl. "The thing Van Gaal teaches is the same thing Van Persie learned from the very beginning. So there, I think, there will be no big problem. Of course he is a big player but he is a Dutch player. That's the thing and the difference to Rooney."

Asked about Van Gaal often staying for only truncated periods with clubs, Scholl said: "Yeah, I think he's for the moment exactly the right coach for United and United will be successful again with him. That's without doubt. That will come. The thing is he is very – he wants a lot of things from the players and, for the players, it is not easy to satisfy him all the time and so after several months, one or two years, it gets less what the players learn.

"We're not computers. Sometimes the brain is full. And he still wants [you] to learn, to learn, to learn, high level, every day. Is it annoying? No. It's exhausting. They lose power. That's what happened at Bayern Munich.

"And that's why he often picks young players because they learn and learn and learn. I don't know if he is working still the same. I just can tell you what happened in Bayern Munich."

Van Gaal's CV shows four Eredivisie titles, two in La Liga, one Bundesliga, the Champions League and Uefa Cup plus various other trophies for the clubs he has led. "He's a brilliant football coach. The way he likes his team to play is absolutely brilliant," Scholl, 43, said. "His main thing is to keep the ball, to be proactive not passive. He is a genius, he's one of the best I've ever seen on the pitch.

" For the big stars it is not easy to work with him but for the young players he is brilliant. He is brilliant on the pitch and wants them to learn all the time, wants them to learn. Even the old players."

So what I said 😉

 

[tombrown]

I think the reality really is that the Scum will be challenging for a top 4 spot sooner rather than later. Van Gaal may be disruptive but I can't think of his record and believe that a team managed by him won't challenge for a CL place, especially if they spend the kind of money they're reported to be willing to spend.

We'd love for them to disappear into obscurity, but with the kind of revenues they generate, that's highly unlikely. I don't think we could've asked for more than someone like Moyes giving us plenty of laughs and delaying their rebuild by a year. Van Gaal will get them back on track, but the hope will be that even if they do challenge, they struggle to win; and that Van Gaal starts his usual disruptive shit again. If 3 years down the line, they've spent 200 million on trophyless top 4 challenges, I think I'd be fairly happy. They'd then need to hunt for a young-ish manager again, and hopefully they will get it horribly wrong again.

I would happily settle for them "challenging for a top 4 spot" while we challenge for the title year in, year out. Obviously a wet dream would be them slipping further & further & ending up as perennial relegation batllers/play-off aspirators, but that can come in a few years if necessary

 

[IGotALuvlyBunchOfCoconuts]

What? So Heynckes wasn't the manager before him? I thought he was? So he didn't have a squad with those players in when he got there?

"When he went to Bayern he got the Heynckes squad with Lucio, Lahm, Ribery, Ze Roberto, Schweinsteiger, Podolski, Klose, Muller."


Heynckes was there for like a month. Which of the players above were Heynckes signings?
You make it sound like he did nothing and reaped the rewards of a manager that was there for a very short time.

 

[Best Believe It]

I would be very surprised if he doesn't fuck over Rooney in some way. Which will be an absolute treat to see.

 

[hamstrung_pigeon]

It almost feels like someone's running a smearing campaign to try and scupper Van Gaal's hopes of being appointed, or at least trying to set the background for a "I told you" scenario in a few months' time. Or perhaps he's made many enemies in his career and everyone's out to stab him and jeopardize his chances.

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http://www.espnfc.com/news/story/_/...ed-boss-louis-van-gaal-very-difficult?cc=4716

Soriano: People don't like Van Gaal
May 2, 2014

By ESPN staff

Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano believes prospective Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal is a "very difficult" character, saying earlier this year: "People don't like him."

Soriano had worked at Barcelona six months after Van Gaal's second stint at the Camp Nou ended and, addressing a football management seminar in March, he said the current Netherlands boss had a habit of making enemies wherever he went.

The Times reported him as saying: "If you treat your people badly, they remember. One day you make an error and they kill you. I've seen this in many clubs.

"Louis van Gaal has been a very good coach in many clubs but his style is very difficult. The same thing happened to him in Barcelona as in Bayern Munich. He is very tough, people don't like him, but he wins. And one day you don't win -- and when you don't win, everybody that is angry with you will come back to you and try to kill you.

"In the movies, this works; in real life, it doesn't."

Van Gaal has since entered into negotiations with United over the prospect of succeeding David Moyes, and it is expected that it will soon be confirmed that he will take charge following the World Cup this summer.

The 62-year-old has won league titles in the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, as well as the Champions League, and former Ajax and United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar recently said Van Gaal was the best manager he had ever worked for, while ex-Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer said he appeared the "perfect" choice to take charge at Old Trafford.

However, he has also had several high-profile disagreements during his managerial career, and Soriano wrote in his book "Goal: The Ball Doesn't Go In By Chance" that Van Gaal was a good example of an "authoritarian expert" -- described as those who "do not accept their mistakes, they try not to pay attention to them, and brush them aside as quickly as possible."

On the Dutchman, he added: "He has won titles with different teams, big and small, and he's thought to have little empathy and social skills. I couldn't help but smile when I heard Uli Hoeness, then Bayern Munich's technical director, explain why Van Gaal wouldn't continue to coach the Bavarian team: 'Van Gaal doesn't listen, it has to be whatever he said.' It seems his reputation is justified."

 

[localny]

(rubs hands gleefully)

 

[Gerry_A_Trick]

People don't like him and he's strict.

Sounds familiar, and perfect for United.

 

[Athens]

I can't believe nothing ever happened to him after he got Edgar Davids, Oliver Bierhoff, Luís Figo, Francesco Totti, and others to break into a facility in order to steal a football, simply because it was rounder.

 

[Squiggles]

People don't like him and he's strict.

Sounds familiar, and perfect for United.

I came in to say the same! I don't get the glee at all.

 

[localny]

It might work, it might not. He'll alienate players, they will be back up there for a spell, but he'll be gone in three years.

IMHO: No-one will succeed as long as Fergie is upstairs.

To summarize: 60-40 chance of coming back; If they come back, they won't be as strong, and he'll be around 36 months tops.